Talk:to

Category

I stumbled over the word "subordinator" in this article.

Shouldn’t that be replaced by "particle"? That’s how it’s called in the "complicated" English Wiktionary: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/to#Particle

Real(?) subordinators are described here: http://www.eslgold.com/grammar/subordinators.html

By the way, the word "subordinator", when looked up in Wikipedia, forwards to "complementizer", which looks to be something rather different again... Geke (talk) 18:43, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

There's certainly a variety of terminology out there, so it is important to remember that labels are not definitions. The concept of complementizer, as described in the wikipedia article is actually very much what is intended here. The term subordinator is inspired by the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. The words described in the link to eslgold are traditionally called subordinating conjunctions and mostly treated here as prepositions taking clausal complements (see, for example, before). I've never seen to called a particle anywhere else, and when you look at their list of "particles", you've got to wonder what they have in mind.--Brett (talk) 02:24, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Auxiliary to

To should be analyzed as an auxiliary verb. Then, in a sentence like It is mad for you to lend him the money, the auxiliary to licenses a bare infinitival clause lend him the money; the NP you is the Object of the preposition for.

--Victor Bob [talk] 00:45, 3 December 2023 (UTC)